For more than three decades, Aires Mateus have shaped a singular architectural language built on precision, voids and the slow intelligence of space. Their projects — whether a museum buried beneath a public square, a ‘carved’ house or a school woven into a medieval city— seem to begin in silence, revealing light, shadow and possibility. In this conversation, Manuel Aires Mateus reflects on the beauty of ruins, the lessons embedded in the reconstruction of Lisbon and the responsibility of designing structures that can outlive their own intentions. This interview, conducted on the occasion of the lecture that Aires Mateus will give on 3 February at Bozar in Brussels, traces a practice that sees architecture not as an end, but as the beginning of a building’s life.

Dominique Pieters (A+): Many of your buildings seem to begin with silence, an emptiness awaiting inhabitation. For you, when does a space feel ‘ready’ to be filled?